Walker had expressed in his book (_pref._ p. xliii.) his intention to deposit his papers in some public repository, and his purpose was fortunately thus carried out. The papers have recently been bound, and now form twelve volumes in folio and eleven in quarto, with a few papers still in bundles[219]. A large number of letters from many among the sufferers and their representatives are here preserved; but, unfortunately, Walker"s own handwriting is often hard to decipher. Many pamphlets which belonged to him (identified by the peculiar handwriting in MS. notes) are amongst a vast series recently bound and placed in continuation of the G.o.dwyn Tracts; and several volumes of pamphlets written by Dissenters were given by himself in the years 1719-21.
The name of Hogarth occurs in the list of donors, as presenting his two engravings of the _a.n.a.lysis of Beauty_, which he had published in the preceding year.
[218] His successor in his Exeter prebend was appointed in that year.
[219] The present writer, in answer to an enquiry in _Notes and Queries_ in 1862 (3rd series, i. 218), said that these papers were amongst the _Rawlinson_ MSS. This mistake arose from the fact that the least important portion had recently been found in a ma.s.s of papers belonging to that collection, but they did not at any time themselves form part of it.
A.D. 1755.
This year is remarkable for the number and variety of the collections with which, during its course, the Library was enriched, comprehending those of Rawlinson, Furney, St. Amand, and Ballard.
On April 6 died Richard Rawlinson, D.C.L., a Bishop among the Non-jurors, notwithstanding that he pa.s.sed in the world as a layman.
From the time of Bodley, Laud, and Selden, he was the greatest benefactor the Library had known; and his only rivals since his own day have been Gough and Douce. In point of numbers, his donation of MSS. far exceeded all. From the short autobiographical notice of himself, given in his own collections for a continuation of the _Athenae Oxon._ (where he has inserted a small portrait of himself, engraved, without his name, by Van der Gucht), we learn the following particulars. He was born Jan.
3, 1689/90, in the Old Bailey, his father being Sir Thos. Rawlinson, who was Lord Mayor of London in 1706. On March 9, 1707/8 (having been previously at St. Paul"s School and Eton), he was matriculated as a commoner of St. John"s College; but in consequence of the death of his father in the same year, he became a gentleman-commoner in 1709; B.A., Oct. 10, 1711[220]; M.A., July 5, 1713; Governor of Bridewell and Bethlehem Hospitals, 1713; F.R.S., 1714; ordained (among the Non-jurors) Deacon, Sept. 21, and Priest, Sept. 23, 1716[221]. He then travelled through the whole of England, except some of the northern parts, and in 1719 went into Normandy, where, while staying at Rouen, he received from Oxford the degree of D.C.L. by diploma of June 30. Thence he went to the Low Countries, where, in Sept., he was admitted into the Universities of both Utrecht and Leyden, and returned into England in Nov. On June 12 in the following year, he started on a longer journey, which he extended through Holland, France, Germany, the whole of Italy, and Sicily, to Malta; and returned on the death of his elder brother Thomas, also a well-known book-collector, in 1726. During his six years"
travels, he had seen, he remarks, four Popes[222]. Admitted F.S.A. May 10, 1727. On March 25, 1728, he was consecrated Bishop, by Bishops Gandy, Doughty, and Blackbourne, in Gandy"s Chapel[223]. Appointed a Governor of St. Bartholomew"s Hospital in March, 1733. He resided at London House, Aldersgate, so called from having been in early days a mansion of the Bishops of London. During his lifetime he was a constant benefactor to the Library; in the years 1733-4-5-7-8-9 and 1750, he is entered in the great Register for special gifts of coins, books, and pictures. Some hundreds of printed books, now in the gallery called "_Jur._," and elsewhere, were given by him at these times; while many of the Holbeins and other valuable portraits in the Picture Gallery came from him[224]. A few MSS. also came from him during his lifetime which are now placed in the general Bodley collection. But at his death all his collections came _en ma.s.se_[225]; collections formed abroad and at home, the choice of book-auctions, the pickings of chandlers" and grocers" waste-paper, everything, especially, in the shape of a MS., from early copies of Cla.s.sics and Fathers to the well-nigh most recent log-books of sailors" voyages[226]. Not a sale of MSS. occurred, apparently, in London, during his time, at which he was not an omnigenous purchaser; so that students of every subject now bury themselves in his stores with great content and profit. But history in all its branches, heraldry and genealogy, biography and topography, are his specially strong points. The printed books bequeathed by him in selection from his whole library (of which those in quarto and smaller sizes are still called by his name) amounted to between 1800 and 1900[227], but the MSS. to upwards of 4800, besides a large number of old charters and miscellaneous unsorted deeds.
The staff of the Library being very small at the time, as well as ill-paid[228], and such an accession being completely overwhelming, the officers appear to have contented themselves with duly entering the printed books, while leaving the MSS. entirely neglected. About the beginning of the present century some steps were taken towards a Catalogue, and a portion were arranged and numbered; still later, considerably more was done. But it was only on the accession of the present Librarian to the Headship, that the full extent of Rawlinson"s collections was ascertained. Every corner of the Library was then thoroughly examined, and cupboard after cupboard was found filled with MSS. and papers huddled together in confusion, while, last not least, a dark hole under a staircase, explored by the present writer on hands and knees, afforded a rich "take," including many writings of Rawlinson"s Non-juring friends. The whole number of volumes thus brought to light amounted to about 1300.
The cla.s.ses into which the whole collection of MSS. is now divided are the following:--
1. _Cla.s.s A_: 500 volumes, chiefly of English history, with a few theological books. Amongst these are the _Thurloe State Papers_, in sixty-seven volumes, of which all of importance were published by Birch, in seven vols. folio, in 1742. These papers were found after the Revolution concealed in the ceiling of garrets in Lincoln"s Inn, which belonged to the rooms formerly occupied by Thurloe; and they still bear too evident marks of the damp to which they were there exposed. They pa.s.sed through Lord Somers" and Sir Jos. Jekyll"s hands into those of a bookseller, Fletcher Gyles, from whom Rawlinson obtained them in 1751, and who, as Rawlinson says, asked at first an "immoderate price" for them. Another series is that of _Miscellaneous Papers of Sam. Pepys_, in twenty-five volumes, containing his correspondence, collections on Admiralty business, &c.[229] These, together with many other volumes which belonged to Pepys (including many curious dockyard account-books of the times of Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth) were "redeemed from _thus et odores vendentibus_[230]." Of another acquisition Rawlinson writes thus:--
"There was lately an auction here of Mr. Bridgeman"s books, curiosities, and MSS., who was formerly clerk of the Council to K.
James II, and register to the Ecclesiastical Commission. Here I laid out some pence, and picked up some curiosities; the original minute-book of the High Commission, the proceedings every session with the names of those present, by which it appears that Bp. Sprat was not so innocent as he would persuade us in his letter to the Earl of Dorset to think, and that notwithstanding all his shiftings he sat to the penultim. Session of that Court;" [Letters canva.s.sing the n.o.bility, gentry, justices of the peace, &c., in favour of the repeal of the Test;] "3 letters from the D. of Monmouth, two to the King and one to the Queen, desiring an audience in which he would give them such satisfaction, ... very pathetic, and deserved at least some attention[231]; ... several volumes of treaties, ...
instructions to amba.s.sadors. Very remarkable are those to Lord Castlemain on his going to Rome, the King"s two letters to the Pope, a third of revocation, all personal and complement, but no emba.s.sy of obedience. Copy-books of letters, private and public, wrote by K.
Charles and K. James II, from which might be collected such a fund of true tho" secret history, that the prize is not to be valued[232], and will, I hope, be a standing monument of great events, and preserved in Bodley"s repository, with the papers of Bp.
Turner and other great men at and since the year 1688[233]."
There are also some papers in this cla.s.s and in Cla.s.s C which belonged to Archbp. Wake, about which Rawlinson writes, on June 24, 1741[234]:--
"My agent last week met with some papers of Archbp. Wake at a chandler"s shop; this is unpardonable in his executors, as all his MSS. were left to Christ Church. But quaere whether these did not fall into some servant"s hands who was ordered to burn them, and Mr.
Martin Folkes ought to have seen that done. They fell into the curate"s hands of St. George, Bloomsbury."
2. _Cla.s.s B_ numbers 520 volumes nominally, but really, including double numbers, 534. They comprise heraldry and genealogy (including MSS. of Sir Richard and Sir Thos. St. George, W. Wyrley, Guillim, Ryley, Glover, Le Neve, and other heralds) English and Irish history, and topography, including several monastic chartularies. Among the genealogical MSS. is a remarkable collection of pedigrees, in twelve volumes, which the present writer ascertained to have been compiled by Thomas Wilkinson, Vicar of Laurence Waltham, Berks, between about 1647 and 1681. They are arranged alphabetically, as far as the letter P in tolerable order and regularity, but thenceforward only in a rough and incomplete state.
Unfortunately the handwriting is far from clear, and the ink has often made it worse. Among the volumes relating to _Ess.e.x_, _Norfolk_, _Suffolk_, &c., are twelve or thirteen which belonged to William Holman, a voluminous collector for the first-mentioned county, who incorporated the gatherings of Rev. John Ousley and Thos. Jekyll. Morant, the historian of Ess.e.x, obtained the larger portion of Holman"s books; some are in the British Museum; and the remainder ("the refuse," says Morant) were bought by Rawlinson in 1752 for 10[235]. Besides the above-mentioned volumes, there are a large number of Holman"s MSS. which are kept distinct, and which have been recently bound in fourteen folio volumes, eleven quarto, and five octavo. Under _London_ are some nineteen or twenty volumes of Diocesan papers which belonged to Bp. John Robinson. They formed (with one volume in Cla.s.s A and several in Cla.s.s C) a ma.s.s which are described by Rawlinson, as follows[236]:--
"I lately rescued from the grocers, chandlers, &c. a parcel of papers once the property of Compton and Robinson, successively Bps.
of London. Amongst those of the first were original subscription and visitation books, letters and conferences during the apprehensions of Popery amongst the clergy of this diocese, remarkable intelligences relating to Burnet and the Orange Court in Holland in those extraordinary times before 1688[237], minutes of the proceedings of the Commissioners for the Propagation of the Gospel, and a great variety of other papers. Amongst those of Bp. Robinson, numbers of originals relating to the transactions at the treaty of Utrecht, copies of his own letters to Lord Bolingbroke, and originals from Lord Bolingbroke, Lord Oxford, Electress and Elector of Hanover, Ormonde, Strafford, Prior, &c.; letters from the Scots deprived Bishops to Compton, and variety of State papers. They belonged to one Mr. [Anth.] Gibbon, lately dead, who was private secretary to both the afore-mentioned prelates."
Under _Bucks_ are Rawlinson"s own collections for a history of Eton College, and under _Middles.e.x_ and _Oxon._ his parochial collections for those counties. The _Irish_ MSS. include many of great antiquity and value which formerly belonged to Sir James Ware, _e.g._ Tigernach"s Annals, Annals of Ulster, Lives of Saints, Dublin Chartularies, Arms of Irish families, Irish poems, &c. Among them is the often noticed Life of St. Columba by Magnus O"Donnell, written in 1532, which was bought by Rawlinson at the Chandos sale for twenty-three shillings.
Of these two cla.s.ses a Catalogue, in one volume quarto, was printed in 1862, which was compiled by the writer of this volume[238]. A full index to the contents of all the MSS. has been made, which remains at present unprinted, but may possibly at some time appear in conjunction with a volume describing the contents of the succeeding cla.s.s.
3. _Cla.s.s C_ comprehends 989 MSS. of very miscellaneous character, but chiefly consisting of law, history and theology, with a few medical works. Among the theological portion are papers of John Dury, the zealous labourer for union amongst Protestants in the time of Charles I, papers of Bedell and Usher, some volumes of John Lewis of Margate[239], and some interesting Service-books of English use, including a Pontifical given to Salisbury Cathedral by Bp. Roger de Martivale between 1315-1329, and an early Oseney book. Several volumes consist of papers of Dr. Chamberlaine (author of _Not.i.tia Angliae_) and Mr. Henry Newman, secretaries of the Societies for the Propagation of the Gospel, and Promoting Christian Knowledge, which, Rawlinson mentions in a letter, dated April 28, 1744, (Ballard MS. ii.) that he had then recently purchased. Some seventeen or eighteen volumes came from the library of Bp. Turner of Ely (together with others in the cla.s.ses called _Miscellaneous_ and _Letters_), containing papers of himself and his brother, Dr. Thomas Turner, Dean of Canterbury. These were obtained by Rawlinson in 1742, who in them became master, as he says, of a considerable treasure for ten guineas[240]." Early English poets are represented by Lydgate, Rolle of Hampole, William of Na.s.syngton, and others[241]; and one volume contains a few Welsh verses. A catalogue exists in MS. The volumes relating to English history in cla.s.ses A and C are noticed in the return printed in the Record Commission Report for 1800, pp. 348-353.
4. The cla.s.s ent.i.tled _Miscellaneous_ numbers about 1400 volumes, and includes the greater part of those which were discovered in 1861. They are so entirely miscellaneous that it is impossible to give in a few lines a real idea of their nature. History, travels, biography, and religious controversy largely prevail. There are papers of Sir Thos.
Browne, Dr. Dee, Maittaire, Peter Le Neve, Ashmole[242], John Dunton, and Bagford, with a very large ma.s.s of _Hearniana_. Of the Non-jurors, there are papers of Grascome, Gandy, Spinckes, Hickes, Fitzwilliams, Howell, and Dean Granville. Some nine or ten volumes are occupied with the accounts of the Royal Surveyor of Works from 1532 to 1545. The Church-wardens" accounts of Sutterton, Lincolnshire, from 1493 to 1536, and of St. Peter"s, Cornhill, from 1664 to 1689, are also found here[243]. There is a large series of Italian MSS. (amongst other foreign books, chiefly French) which bear on English history, as containing copies of reports made to Rome by Papal agents and to Venice by amba.s.sadors, together with the proceedings at many conclaves. These were bought by Rawlinson at Sir Jos. Jekyll"s sale of the Somers" MSS.
in 1739, for 3 15_s._[244] There is also a ma.s.s of papers of J. J.
Zamboni, Venetian Resident in England, and a friend of Maittaire. A considerable number of autograph signatures, barbarously cut out from various books, by Thomas Rawlinson, were found in loose papers; these have now been mounted and bound in two volumes. There are not, however, many of interest among them, except several of Ben Jonson.
5. In _Letters_ there are upwards of 100 volumes, comprising all the multifarious correspondence of Hearne with Anstis, Bagford, Baker, Barnes, Dodwell, Smith, &c., the correspondence of Rawlinson, Dr. Thomas Turner, and Bishop Francis Turner, Philip Lord Wharton, and Sir Edm.
Warcupp. One volume contains a few letters by Dryden, Pope, Edw. Young, &c. There is also a series of letters in three vols. relating to Dr.
John Polyander, of Kerckhoven, Professor of Divinity at Leyden, and eight or nine volumes of Vossius" correspondence, being the originals from which the folio volume published at London in 1691 was printed.
6. The cla.s.s of _Poetry_ contains 221 volumes, including Chaucer, Hoccleve, Lydgate, Capgrave (Life of St. Catherine), and Rolle of Hampole, with Piers Plowman and the Romance of Parthenope of Blois (both imperfect). The majority are miscellaneous poems and plays of the seventeenth century. One volume, containing the words of anthems with the composers" names, is supposed to be the Chapel-book used by Charles I.
Of the three last-mentioned cla.s.ses, a brief MS. list was drawn up with great neatness and accuracy by Dr. Bliss, in 1812 (reaching in the case of the _Miscell._ only as far as No. 407); an index, in continuation, to all the later additions is now in process of formation.
7. Of _Sermons_ there are about 200 volumes; many of which are by Non-jurors, including three by Rawlinson himself. Ten volumes are by Dan. Price, Dean of St. Asaph, 1696-1706; and one volume is said to contain unpublished sermons by Leighton, apparently from notes taken by some auditor at the time of delivery. These have been copied for publication in a proposed new edition (under the care of Rev. W. West, of Nairn, N.B.) of Leighton"s whole works.
8. A selection of Biblical and Cla.s.sical MSS., with a few others, amounting to 199, are placed in the case marked "_Auctarium_," G.
Amongst these are a few Greek volumes, with critical _Adversaria_ of Maittaire, Josh. Lasher, and J. G. Graevius. Early copies of Statius, Ovid, Virgil, &c. form part of the cla.s.sics; while among the Biblical MSS. is a grand eighth-century copy (written in rounded minuscules, in the same style as the Rushworth book) of the Gospels of St. Luke and St.
John, and a beautiful eleventh-century Psalter with the commentary of St. Bruno. One other fine book is a Psalter written for Ch. Ch.
Cathedral, Dublin, by the care of Stephen Derby, Prior, about A.D.
1360-80, with remarkable miniatures ill.u.s.trating Psalms x.x.xix, liii, lxix, lx.x.xi, and xcviii.
9. Of _Missals_, _Horae_, and other Service-books, there are (besides those which are scattered in Cla.s.ses C and G Auct.) about 130. These (most of which are of French origin, bought out of the library of Nic.
Jos. Foucault[245], of Flemish, or of Italian) are now incorporated with a large collection of Liturgical books, which are called _Canon.
Liturg._, from their having formed part of the Canonici collection purchased in 1818.
10. A small collection of _Statutes_, comprising sixty-five volumes, is kept distinct. They consist of the Statutes of various Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, of the Cathedrals of Lichfield, Hereford, Worcester, Chester, Manchester, Canterbury, Exeter, and the Abbey of Westminster; of the Order of the Garter (various copies); of Hospitals at Croydon, Chipping-Barnet, and Chichester; of the Gresham Charities, together with the Charters of London and Bristol; Statutes made by the Chapter of Paris for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre there in 1421, and an eighteenth-century transcript of the Statutes of the College at Bayeux. But the volume of most interest in this cla.s.s is the rare printed volume of the Statutes of Thame School, issued in 1575. Of this, only five other copies are known, one kept at the School itself, a second in the custody of the Warden of New College (the Visitor of the School), a third in the Royal Library, Brit. Mus., and the fourth and fifth, both on vellum, in the possession of the Earl of Abingdon and in the Grenville Library, Brit. Mus. Rawlinson"s copy, which wants the t.i.tle, has in it the book-plate of John, Duke of Newcastle.
11. Of the MSS. of Dr. Thomas Smith, the Non-juror, of Magd. Coll., Oxford, there are 139 volumes, which (with the exception of a few bequeathed by Smith himself) came into Rawlinson"s hands together with the rest of Hearne"s collections. They are noticed above, under the year 1735.
12. Besides the mult.i.tude of books, scattered throughout every cla.s.s of Rawlinson"s library, which belonged to Hearne or were written by him, there are about 150 small duodecimo volumes of Hearne"s daily diary and note-books, commencing in July, 1705, and ending on June 4, 1735, the last actual entry being on June 1, and his decease occurring on June 10.
The character of this diary is well known from the two volumes of Extracts published by Dr. Bliss in 1857, with the t.i.tle, _Reliquiae Hearnianae_. But it must not be supposed that these volumes comprehend all that deserves publication; the diary throughout is full of like curious personal history and anecdote, antiquarian gleanings and amusing gossip, mixed, of course, with a good deal of occasional acrimony against those with whom Hearne came in collision either from differences in academic or literary matters, or from their being friends of the "Elector of Hanover." There is scarcely a subject falling within its writer"s scope of observation on which this Diary may not be consulted; and as it is written in his usual plain and neat hand, with an index to each volume, it is fortunately easy for reference. Hearne bequeathed all his MSS., and books with MSS. notes, to Mr. William Bedford, son of the well-known bishop among the Non-jurors, Hilkiah Bedford; the legatee died on July 11, 1747, and Rawlinson bought them of his widow for 105. Hence it was that they came finally to the place where Hearne would himself have rejoiced to see them deposited. The autobiographical sketch of Hearne"s own life, which Huddesford published in 1772, in conjunction with the lives of Leland and Wood, is preserved among the _Miscellaneous_ MSS. Of this Rawlinson says, in a letter dated June 19, 1740[246]: "Tom"s own life was so low and poor a performance that I recommended it to Bedford to burn." On account, probably, of the numerous reflections which the Diary contained on living persons, Rawlinson ordered in his bequest that it should not be open to inspection until after the lapse of seven years. He laid also the same restraint upon the use of his own papers noticed in the next paragraph.
13. Large collections were made by Rawlinson for a continuation of Wood"s _Athenae Oxon._ These contain much valuable biographical information, derived in very many cases from the actual information of the persons noticed, letters from many of whom are inserted. There are, in all, twenty-five volumes, folio and quarto; among the folios there are two series of notices arranged alphabetically, and one volume (also alphabetical) of notices of Cambridge men admitted _ad eundem_; the quartos contain 1331 notices, numbered but not arranged in any other order, with one general alphabetical index. These collections, together with Hearne"s Diaries, and Rawlinson"s Non-jurors" Papers, and notes of his own Travels, were included in a fourth and last codicil, dated Feb.
14, 1755, which directed that all these papers should be kept locked up during a period of seven years. By the same codicil also were conveyed numerous engravings by Vertue, portraits of Englishmen, some paintings, and a collection of Roman, Persian, Italian, and English medals[247].
Some of the Italian medals, particularly a fine set in copper of the members of the House of Medici, are now exhibited in a case in the Picture Gallery[248]. By a codicil of June 17, 1752, Rawlinson had previously bequeathed a series of medals of Popes, of which he remarks, "as they are, I take them to be one of the most complete collections now in Europe;" together with twenty shillings _per annum_ for enlarging and continuing the set[249].
14. Finally (as regards MSS.), Rawlinson left a ma.s.s of ancient charters, five hundred of which were catalogued by Mr. c.o.xe some years ago, and of vellum deeds and doc.u.ments of all kinds, chiefly of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He left, also, all the copper-plates containing engravings of some of his ancient doc.u.ments and other curiosities, as well as a large number of impressions from these plates. Many of these impressions were sold at the sale of Bodleian duplicates in 1862. The copper-plates were added to his bequest by a second codicil, dated July 25, 1754, in which he desired that impressions should be taken from them, to be sold in one volume for the use and benefit of the University. A last item in Rawlinson"s miscellaneous gifts (besides various bas-reliefs, figures, a Jewish vessel, Muscovite cup, &c.) was a large collection of matrices of ancient conventual and personal seals, chiefly foreign; together with impressions of seals, ancient and modern, in metal and wax, "most of which," it is said in the Will (p. 4), "were of the collection of Mr.
Charles Christian, the celebrated seal engraver." The wax impressions are now exhibited in the Picture Gallery.
Distinct from Rawlinson"s other printed books is a curious series of Almanacs, in 175 volumes, extending from 1607 to 1747, which were sent to the Library in 1752. Some volumes in continuation, from 1747 to 1768, were given by Sir Rob. H. Inglis, Bart., in 1846[250]. Another series, between 1571 and 1663, is in the Ashmole collection.
By his second codicil, of July 25, 1754, Rawlinson bequeathed a fee-farm rent of 4 _per annum_ to the Under-librarian, in consideration of his taking charge of the MSS., but clogged with the strange conditions that he should not be a doctor in any faculty, married, or in Holy Orders[251]. The receipt of this sum is entered in the Accounts for 1756, but in no subsequent year.
The following is an alphabetical list of the princ.i.p.al libraries from which Rawlinson"s MSS. were collected, with the dates (so far as ascertained) at which these libraries were dispersed:--
Acton (Oliver), of Bridewell Hosp.
Bacon (Thos. Sclater), 1737.
Bridgeman (Will. & Rich.), 1742.
Chandos (Duke of), 1747.
Clarendon (Henry, Earl of). Through _Chandos_.
Clavell (Walter), 1742.
Compton (Bishop). See p. 175.
Foucault (Nic. Jos.), "Comes Consistoria.n.u.s[252]," 1721.